Word: experimenters
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When his computer program went awry and what was intended as an innocuous experiment mushroomed into a national crisis, Robert T. Morris Jr. '87-'88 called his friends at Harvard.
Graham, who called The New York Times Thursdaymorning to explain that the virus was "anaccident," said it was part of an experiment incomputer security which Morris had been working onfor some time.
Graham, characterizing the experiment as beingborn out of "scientific curiosity" rather than"malicious curiosity," said that an error in theprogram caused the virus to mulitiply and spreadat a rapid rate from computer to computer. Heexplained that Morris had intended only for thevirus to have one copy in each computer withoutreplicating...
Morris, who has remained silent in spite ofheavy national media attention, is a privateperson who would never have run an experiment ifhe thought it would draw attention to him, hisfriends said.
"In some sense, it was an experiment, it wastomfoolery," said Kuperberg, now a graduatestudent at the University of California atBerkeley. "If it had worked properly, no one wouldhave noticed it, and he would have seen itprogress and be amused by it."